Xing fu shi guang

Zhao is a 50 year old unemployed loser making one last attempt at finding love. He courts a portly divorcee, but keeps having to lie to pass himself off as a better catch than he really is. Eventually, of course, the lies backfire. Zhao tells his sweetheart that he is the manager of a fancy hotel. She responds by foisting her blind stepdaughter off on him, confident that he can easily find her employment at his fancy hotel.

What follows is a funny, unlikely and touching relationship between Zhao and the blind girl Wu. While Zhao is terribly misguided, constructing elaborate deceptions to keep Wu "employed" at the non-existent hotel, he does these wrong things for the right reasons. Zhao does find love, but it isn't the woman or the love he expected.

This is an excellent film and there are three big reasons why: First of all, it's directed by Zhang Yimou who may well be the best director alive. This isn't a masterpiece like "Raise the Red Lantern," but seeing the phrase "Directed by Zhang Yimou" should be enough to tell you the next two hours will be well spent.

The second and third reasons are Benshan Zhao as Zhao and Jei Dong as Wu. Zhao is a respected Chinese comedian, but the role here is really a mixture of comedy and drama. Zhao gives the mixture exactly the right touch. But the real revelation is Jei Dong. I found myself wondering through the entire movie if she were really blind. She is that good. (And I still don't know the answer.)

Don't expect a laugh out loud comedy if you see this movie. It is very funny in places, but frequently that humor is very uncomfortable. And frequently happy times aren't really what they seem.

There is no doubt in my mind that Zhang Yimou is one of the world's finest film makers. He manages to straddle the bounds of both art house and commercialism with his catalogue of works that show a beauty and grandeur that often earns the description "painterly", whilst also telling a really good story. Happy Times is something of a departure from works like Raise The Lantern and Shanghai Triad, being a fairly realist comedy.

Happy Times ("Happy Times Hotel" on the print) is about a group of 'retired' (laid off) factory workers who conspire to hoax a young blind girl. Not as callous as it sounds though, as their intentions are relatively good. The main characters are a 50 year old bachelor (Zhao Benshan) and the blind girl herself, played by newcomer Dong Jie. A small crowd of interesting friends and the gargantuan love interest/stepmother of the leads pad out the cast, which mostly plays out in a couple of small locations - two cramped flats, a sprawling abandoned warehouse, and a delapidated bus.

It's very much a character piece, focussing mainly on the relationship that develops between Zhao Benshan and Dong Jie, thrust together under circumstances that neither planned. It's a tender story... a little bit happy, a little bit sad. Bittersweet I guess, but only slightly bitter.

Zhang Yimou forgoes his usual luscious cinematography for quite a naturalistic feel. Apparently he used "hidden cameras" to shoot some of it, but I've no idea what that means (maybe the street scenes?). It's quite a simple piece, a light 95 minutes long, yet still crafted with the dexterity and care that Zhang Yimou always brings to a film. Being a character piece, it is very much dependent on the performances for success - Zhang could coax an oscar winner out of a mannequin, but Dong Jie here is especially good. If I hadn't seen her walking around the theatre unattended, I would certainly have believed she was genuinely blind (this is not an easy thing to act), and her emotional expression is spot on too. You couldn't possibly not care for her character, or that of Zhao Benshan.

The movie might be quite 'slight' in Zhang Yimou's filmography - it's unlikely to win any oscars for him, but it is a nicely made movie that I think everybody can enjoy.

There is, in this world, many parents, siblings or grandparents are, but they always angry, especially when it comes to their loved ones. His "generosity" is full of contempt, anger and I think that self-frustration for failing to more fortunate children or grandchildren or more committed to themselves. This giving is worth very little, because the recipient feel humiliated, and love is hate and what does not grow in his heart, first by himself, by being forced to receive from whoever stain, and second, that which gives because he knows that, at bottom, despises him.

There is in this world, and fortunately, people who are eager to give and to serve because he feels playing the role for which he was born, then, when given the heart, there is nothing more rewarding for humans to feel that someone has released a fix or which has helped improve their quality of life. Being that really works, do not expect rewards, for the simple flow makes you feel full, and instead wanted to thank you, it is he who gives them for being in a state of abundance.The sincere and loving act of giving is an act of creation because it is spreading, confidence and hope.

It is this that comes Zhao, a man old enough and who, wishing to mate with a plump woman conflictive existence, just knowing Wu Ying, a sweet blind teenager who, motherless and abandoned by her father with his stepmother, he began to feel that, this woman is charging the resentment what she feels for his volatile father. Zhao, take time to under the beautiful Wu and begin a long quest to get her access to the happy times, while getting to make sense of their existence.

Yimou's film, soon to look at the classic Charles Chaplin "City Lights" but his personal touch and very oriental, manages the film with feel and certain charm, though - it must be said - without the immense magic and poetic warmth that has the now classic work of Charlot. However, at the end one feels that, with grace and wisdom, "Happy Times", has shown a path that gives meaning to existence, and so, well deserve our warmest applause.

No longer partnered, artistically or domestically, with the stunning Gong Li, director Zhang Yimou has probably redeemed himself with Party satraps through his engaging serio-comic "Happy Days." (He's been in and out of hot water with past films.) Destined to reach a miniscule audience in theaters, this touching film ought to be widely viewed when released for sale or rental.

Set in an unnamed Chinese city (definitely not Beijing), the story revolves around retired factory worker Zhau, just over fifty, and a blind teenager, Wu Ying, stepdaughter of the corpulent and avaricious woman the impecunious Zhau seeks as a wife. Wu Ying, blind since early childhood from a tumor, has to deal not only with her witch of a stepmom (dad fled from her and is supposedly in a far off city working to send money to bring his daughter to him) but with her stepbrother, a bulbous slobus amoebus training to match his mother's nastiness.

Zhau has a covey of good friends. His first get rich scheme, hatched up with his closest friend, is to "restore" a derelict bus in a park to its pristine state so it can be rented for quick, hot sheet assignations ("Happy Times Hotel"). Americans will find the Chinese take on non-marital, catch-as-catch-can sex naive but it reflects tension balanced by humor in a country where the citified young seek freedoms their elders never enjoyed.

The core of the story is Zhau's attempts to take care of Yu Wing after the evil stepmom throws her at Zhau and tells him to get her out of the house and keep her out. With his friends, all equally hovering near or under the poverty line, Zhau sets Yu Wing up as a masseuse in a fake massage parlor in a decrepit abandoned factory, the legitimate kind of parlor, not the type I heard about when an Army officer in severalAsian countries (Yu Wing was trained to give massages).

I won't reveal the lengths Zhau and his gang go to in their effort to sustain Yu Wing and make her happy. Some of their scheming is very funny. The ending reflects, hardly for the first time, Zhang Yimou's skill not only as a top director but also as a talented storyteller.

I've never seen the actor and actress who play the leads before. They simply blend their performances convincingly into a seamless story that says more about the possibilities and rewards of empathy and the joys of caring than it does about modern China. The locales here range from an affluent downtown to a condemned, empty factory. There's hardly any politics. It's sad, though, that a decent, retired factory worker can't spring for a 25 yuan Haagen Daz small cone offered in a shop that could have been imported from Main Street.

Put this one on your to-rent list!!

Yimau Zhang takes us along for a ride to explore how things seem to have changed in China. The country has given a step forward into the modern age as it shakes off its rigid past, adopting new ways in doing things. In fact, the country appears to have developed its own take on capitalism, as we watch a new prosperous, and aggressive China, transformed in ways we had not envisioned before. Mr. Zhang's film is an allegory about his country.

The main idea in the film is how Zhao, a factory worker, sets his eyes on a plump and attractive woman to get married. The woman, in turn, has her own ideas of what to expect from this man who lies to her and makes himself pass for a hotel manager. Thinking this is the case, the lady friend proposes he employs her stepdaughter, a blind girl that has been abandoned by her father, who has decamped to another city.

Zhao, who wants to keep the girlfriend happy, decides to take Wu Ying to work at his hotel, which in reality is a bus, that he and his buddy have converted in a lovers' motel, in a park. But before he can do anything, Zhao watches in horror as how some cleaning crews are taking his livelihood away because they are beautifying the area. Zhao is stuck with Wu Ying, so he takes her to his own humble apartment.

Zhao and his friends from the factory devise a plan to convert space in the dilapidated building a massage parlor so that the blind girl can work. The only thing, there are no clients, and only Zhao's friends are enrolled to tip the young woman using Zhao's own money.

The film is a delightful comedy about how being entrepreneurial backfires on the well intentioned man. The blind girl, Wu Ying, knows much more than what Zhao and the rest give her credit for, and unfortunately, everything ends badly, except for the blind girl, who recognizes the kindness of his mentor, who doesn't get to know first hand of her gratitude because fate intervenes.

"Happy Times" is a charming film that works thanks to the light touch by the director. Benshan Zhao, who has been seen in other Chinese films is excellent in the role of Zhao. Jie Dong plays Wu Ying with conviction and Lifan Dong, is the stepmother, who discovers the duplicity of her would be husband.

Recommended to all Yimou Zhang's fans who might have missed its commercial run.